


Bruises

by shy_cactus



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Temporary Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Suicidal Ideation, is this what the kids call a, mentions of the rest of the ipre crew, referenced magnus/julia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 20:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11516595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shy_cactus/pseuds/shy_cactus
Summary: Magnus should have died a long time ago.  He wouldn't have made so many mistakes if he did.(takes place during/after episode 66; mentions of Raven's Roost and The Eleventh Hour)





	Bruises

Here’s what Magnus knows. Everyone on the Starblaster has fallen to extremes unlike anything they’ve felt before, oversaturated with guilt and burning up from inside. Merle is too bright. Lup is devastated. Lucretia has been spending all her time alone, and after the cycle she spent on the run Magnus is afraid of her becoming brittle. But it’s hard to approach his crewmates about things that are so deeply wrong, especially Lucretia when hers was the loudest voice against this plan. So Magnus shuts himself away too, though not always in his quarters; he can be alone in the common areas of the ship just fine, and nobody disturbs him because something about the set of his shoulders or the tremble in his fingers screams _don’t touch me or I’ll break._ He shuts himself away and carves, sometimes with a purpose but often just shaving pieces off the chunks of wood he picks up on the rare occasions Davenport decides to touch down. He carves, distracting himself or maybe trying to whittle away the stain he knows they are leaving on this world. He’d never made anything from wood before he joined the IPRE, so he wouldn’t know the difference, but he asks Barry one day if even the trees are the same here as they were at home, not sure what he wants the answer to be. 

Maybe it’s different for the elves and Merle, but the human mind isn’t made to remember entire centuries, and you don’t memorise details like that if you expect to be coming back soon. It’s been decades since Magnus could remember the exact colour of the sky he grew up under, let alone types of trees or the timbre of crickets at night. He clings to the few things he has left of that world. His grandfather’s knife rests heavy in his hand as he carves.

 

Here’s what Magnus knows. He’s always rushed in, big and loud and hitting whatever he thought deserved hitting with whatever weapons he had, and he created a non-weapon that does its dirty work quietly, in secret. The other relics can be seen, fought, stopped; they are fire and candy and raw power, they lure you in and wrest control from you and everyone can see the devastation. There’s a death count and something to bury, scars and bruises on the planet so no one can ignore what was done there. The Chalice is a slow-working poison. Drink from it and it slips into your mind like water, asks you to turn time inside out because it’s what’s best for you, it’s what you want, and the best part is that nobody will be any wiser for it. Nobody has to _know_ that you gave in. Remember your worst mistake–

 

Here’s what Magnus knows. They have been traveling for a century. He and Lucretia and Barry should have died, permanently, decades ago. Instead they got ninety-nine do-overs and no consequences. His black eye healed again and it took him two months to realise he was never going to wake up with that bruise. Maybe other black eyes– certainly other injuries– but that one, the one eye swollen shut that meant he was alive again and they had clawed their way through one more year, was gone forever. If Barry and Lup’s plan works, this will be the last cycle. His grandfather’s knife is going to need sharpening for the first time in a hundred years, after a century it spent always returning to the same state it was in when he first set foot on the Starblaster. He didn’t even have a good reason for bringing it– it’s not very useful as a weapon, and he didn’t carve then. It just felt good to have something from his family on board. It’s hard for Magnus to remember to not throw away his life this time, that if he rushes in and dies on this planet he’ll be gone forever like the rest of his family. He tries not to think about all the lives he could save if he went planetside and rushed in. He wasn’t many years into the journey before he stopped discriminating which causes were worth dying for, because as long as someone else made it through he could sacrifice himself to help whoever needed it and be fine. He’s gotten so used to dying, it’s hard to remember that it’s supposed to be a bad thing. He tries to keep himself convinced that it wouldn’t be better if he did die permanently.

 

Here’s what Magnus doesn’t know. He will fall in love. The years on the Starblaster are unparalleled but there is something wonderful about such a simple, warm life, stationary in one place for so long, carving chairs and end tables and beautiful waterfowl, where his only bruises come from everyday clumsiness. (Magnus forgets how graceful he can be in battle. Domesticity is unfamiliar and it takes some time to get used to living in a house. He believes he’s just an oaf.) And there is something devastating about not knowing the exact date the daydream will come to an end. It’s strange how there is no calendar significance to the day he comes back to Raven’s Roost to find the (his) world ended. It’s not his fault, but he could have stopped it. If only he were not soft, if love and family hadn’t moulded his heart and led him to believe that there was good in everyone. Anyone else would have killed Kalen when they had the chance. 

One day years from this moment, in a bubble where time is eerily akin to a century long forgotten, the Chalice will slither into his mind and offer him one of the hardest choices he ever makes. It’s not his choice to make. The others would say, if they could remember, that it is his status as the creator that saves him, but it will be a woman in a blue dress with a smile like sunshine. It will be the ring that hangs on a chain against his heart that reminds him to be gentle. 

 

Here’s what Magnus knows. Nobody is talking about settling down on the surface, starting a life there. It’s the logical next step, and yet nobody’s feet are moving. He thinks everyone– himself included– wants, needs, to stay as far away as possible. If there was anywhere to go from which they wouldn’t have to see those black circles and natural disasters, they would; but there’s nowhere, and they all feel the need to keep an eye on the world below. It’s hard to face what they have done to this world from the distance the Starblaster provides; it would be impossible to live in it. But it wouldn’t be right to leave and pretend they hadn’t done anything wrong. Pan forbid they ever manage to _forget_ what they’ve done to this planet. The crew of the Starblaster sentenced an entire planet to constant chaos and disaster, and it’s their responsibility to live with the consequences.

 

Here’s what Magnus doesn’t know. In the decade after, he rushes in again and again. There’s a pervasive uselessness that plagues him, an itching feeling that he’s no good unless he sacrifices himself to protect others. It usually works out fine for him but he won’t be upset the time that it finally ends badly. He won’t remember what causes that itch. After _her,_ after Raven’s Roost and a long period that he calls healing, he comes to terms with death, and it’s not like he invites it but he leaves the door open. That isn’t always enough, though, and he tries to scratch that itch now and again and static crawls over his skin like spiders. Magnus stopped being afraid to die a long time ago, but exactly _how_ long depends on which version of him is telling the story.

 

The old woman will ask him to think of his worst mistake, and will show him the happiest days of his life. Will remind him how they came to an end that he could have stopped. She believes that his worst mistake was in choosing to be soft, deciding not to kill a man just because he could. And although this is not true, his true worst mistake has been stolen from him, so he believes it too.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! I don't write fic very often so idk about this but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


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